Interloper, p.10
Interloper, page 10
Astrid crept up on the car and peered into the glass to see if she could find anything. She knew this girl had her items. She just knew it. If she could retrieve them then, she could avoid having to return to the house at all.
Seeing a large fabric sack on the seat, she attempted to tug on the levers that would give her access to the items she sought. They didn’t budge. Frustrated, she looked around, not sure what she might find, but hoping for some flash of inspiration. In doing so, she noticed a large vehicle parked nearby with an older couple who seemed to be arguing, and the woman was pointing right at Astrid.
Giving up on her endeavor, Astrid scuttled through the rows of cars and back across the street.
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As Charlie pulled up to the funeral home, she recognized the familiar face of the groundskeeper between a row of headstones in the distance. She pulled into a visitor spot out front, parked, and reached for the small Fotomat bag to her right. Making her way inside, she found Cora sitting behind her desk and braced herself for the woman’s creepy voice.
As she handed the bag over, she explained what they were and how her dad had already spoken to Mr. Cuthwaight, the funeral home’s officiator, about how they wanted them to be displayed. The tiny woman thanked Charlie, then read from a list before her, reviewing the schedule for ’the next day’s internment. That word had a visceral cut that hit Charlie to the core. She nodded in agreement with the timeline as Cora made a few additional ticks to the boxes on the paper before her.
Seeming to sense Charlie’s discomfort, Cora asked if she needed to take a seat for a moment and gestured to a small sitting area tucked behind several coffins. Declining, Charlie thanked her and turned to leave. Taking refuge in Juicy’s front seat, she laid back her head and closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure how long she sat that way, and was interrupted by a sudden rap on the window which startled her, making her bolt upright, causing her to hit her head on the visor.
Peering out the driver’s window, she saw the face of the groundskeeper looking in at her. She cranked the window down and greeted him. He introduced himself as Mateo and informed Charlie that he didn’t want to alarm her, but he sees a lot of strange things in his position and, most recently, he saw her mother roaming the grounds. He told her he believes in ghosts and spirits, but he did not believe what he saw was her mother’s spirit, but another creature. His abuela raised him to believe in otro yo, or a ghostly double, and gemelo malvados, or an evil twin. He explained that he sensed something nefarious and diabolical in its intent and warned her to be mindful of her surroundings, then handed her a set of rosaries that his abuela had given him for protection. Charlie attempted to refuse the gift, but Mateo insisted. She thanked him and pressed that she had to get going. He bowed his head and said his goodbyes as he performed the sign of the cross.
Looking in her side-view mirror, Charlie wound her window up. That was not at all something she would have predicted would happen that day. As she drove home, she couldn’t shake off what Mateo had told her. Was that what she had also seen?
Arriving back home before her grandparents, Charlie kept her spot in the driveway to allow them the access to the garage and the breezeway. She greeted her dad as she walked through the door but decided to keep the events at the funeral home to herself. She followed his voice to the back of the house, where he had moved around the furniture in the sunroom and was currently setting up several six-foot-long party tables. Her mom had invested in them years ago for mini fashion shows she would host with the neighbors and other customers. They definitely had gotten their money’s worth out of them.
Dropping her backpack on the small couch in the corner, Charlie reached for a set of legs, snapping them into an upright position. Securing the base, she let her dad know she successfully dropped off the slides and reviewed the schedule with Cora.
Dale interjected, “Oh, the woman that looks like that creepy psychic in Poltergeist?”
Charlie giggled. “Yep, that’s the one”
“Go into the light Carol Anne,” Dale mocked in his best creepy southern accent.
They both laughed as they flipped the table to its upright position. Sliding it into place, completing the large U-shape, Dale gave a palm slap to the top of the table and said, “Now to wipe these babies down and figure out where your mom kept the coverings for them.”
Charlie filled him in on where to find the cleaning products and volunteered to go on the hunt for the table cloths.
She headed up to the attic, where she vaguely remembered seeing a box labeled table linens. She grabbed a flashlight at the top of the stairs and examined the writing on the boxes shelved to her far right. Charlie’s Baby Clothes. Dale’s College Papers. She continued to scan, moving on to the next set of shelves, where she noticed an odd, unlabeled banker box tucked in a dark corner between shelving units.
Lifting the lid slowly, she told herself, “Just open it…it’s not like something’s going to jump out at you.” In the dim light, she found a pile of random pictures, a few stuffed animals, tchotchkes, and a few journals. The journals, however, were different from the ones she had already found. These were older looking, leather bound, and even had locks.
Placing the lid back on the box, she decided to leave it in its place. Ending her search for the tablecloths just a few moments later, she made her way back down to her dad, who was relaxing in a side chair, Coke in his hands. She set the material on one of the tables, slid into the kitchen, and grabbed a can of Coke for herself along with the opened bag of Doritos, to which she said, “I told you I’d be back.”
As she entered the room with tiny little skips, Dad smiled at her and the contents of her hand. “Oh, to be young and be able to eat whatever you want with no repercussions.” She unrolled the top of the bag and shoved the opening towards him. “Eat,” she commanded. He reached in and drew back a handful of cheesy triangles. They sat together, noshing and sipping, as they discussed the final setup for the room and which room to tackle next.
Charlie filled her dad in on her date the other night, as well as Ramona’s pending sleepover plans for after the party, then agreed to tackle the half bath on the ground floor and the guest bath upstairs in case there was a need for the overflow. Her dad said he didn’t want to inconvenience his mom and dad and suggested that Charlie keep her door open this one time? Agreeing, she gave a soldier’s salute and headed for the tiny linen closet in the mudroom that housed the cleaning supplies. Her dad would move on to the family room.
Deciding she needed a little musical motivation, she headed up and grabbed her Walkman from the small table next to her tub. Returning to the half bath dancing to Men Without Hats’ “Safety Dance”, she shimmied around the small room with the spray and cloth. She took a step back after several minutes, admiring her efforts, and headed to the linen closet to grab two clean hand towels. After placing them on the towel bars, she ripped open a Renuzit air freshener from its cardboard confinement and gave the top a twist to expose the weird, gelatinous cone beneath it. She remembered how she was always curious as to why it disappeared over time, and her mom’s even more obscure explanation likening it to a snowman melting.
After setting the air freshener on the center of the toilet tank, she gathered her trash and cleaning supplies, then flicked off the light and proceeded to her next victim. “Dirty Dancing” her way up the stairs with her best Francis “Baby” Houseman impression, she made her way to her bathroom. She stood in the doorway and observed the scene before her. While she was in no way a messy person, she definitely inherited her mom’s disastrous approach to organization. She grabbed her Caboodle, corralled the half-dozen or so makeup items strewn across the vanity top, and plopped them in the trays. She then picked up the hair clips, ponytail holders, and bobby pins and placed them in a wicker basket, which sat on a shelf above the toilet. Systematically, she worked her way around the room until it was presentable and pine fresh. Taking the trash and setting it outside her bedroom door, Charlie slid her headphones off her ears just in time to hear her grandparents making their way through the mudroom door. With a final scan of the bathroom, she turned off the lights, retrieved the trash, and went downstairs to see if she could be of help.
Greeting the group, Charlie offered to help Grandpa with bringing in the rest of the groceries while Grandma started the process of unpacking and sorting through the bags. By the time she and Pops made it in with the last of the bags, the kitchen had exploded with various items. Grandma and Dad stood ready to snatch the bags in their hands.
“Mom, I think you covered everything! And then some!” Dad said with a tone of wonder in his voice.
“The last thing we want is to run out of something,” she replied.
All four of them tackled placing the remaining items in their respective spots. Charlie explained she had finished the bathrooms and was ready for the next task.
Her grandma chimed in with, “Why don’t you help me get some lunch together for us all?”
Charlie accepted, and her dad and grandpa went outside and made sure things looked good and to discuss parking for the reception, leaving Charlie and Grandma to their culinary artistry. As her grandma ran through a few options, Charlie grabbed another Coke from the fridge, realizing she needed to wean herself off that stuff.
They landed on grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and tomato soup as their menu for lunch, and Charlie pulled four cans of soup from the pantry. Opting for the less manual way of opening them, she placed each can under the arm of the pea green can opener and pushed down hard enough for it to grasp the lip and begin its circular journey to expose their contents. Repeating this for each can, she then dumped the red liquid into a large saucepan from the lower cabinets. Taking one of the cans and the pan over to the sink, she added two full cans of water to the pot. It called for a one-to-one ratio, but Charlie and her dad liked it on the thicker side. Setting the pot on the rear burner, she turned the dial to low and set a wooden spoon across the top for stirring as needed.
Turning around towards the island, she found her grandma had assembled four ham and cheese sandwiches and was currently slathering the tops of the bread with mayo in preparation for grilling. Leaning down to grab the large skillet from the drawer below the stove, Charlie asked her grandma what she thought of Wegmans. Grandma waved her arms in the air as she described the sheer size of Wegmans compared to their tiny Piggly Wiggly store back in Chagrin Falls and how the choices were almost too overwhelming, but that she and Grandpa had enjoyed all the little shops within the store and the samples that came with visiting them. She also shared that they had splurged and gotten several pastries from the phenomenal bakery for them to have for breakfast with coffee in the morning.
As they grilled each sandwich and stirred the soup, Charlie pulled down four bowls and small plates from the upper cabinet. She took a peek out the rear window, but couldn’t see her dad and grandpa and figured they were out front by then. Excusing herself to go gather them up, she opened the front door to find them both down in the cul-de-sac, chatting with their neighbor. Her grandpa had a long stick with chalk secured to the end and was marking out a makeshift parking spot on to the macadam. As she called them in for lunch, she noticed the dozen or so spaces they had created. She waved to the neighbor and turned around to head back in.
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Astrid watched, contemplating a way to enter the home, as she listened to their plans for the day. Solidifying her window of opportunity, she withdrew her consciousness back to her body in the motel room. For her plan to work, walking would be out of the question. There was no way she could drive, so she decided she needed a bicycle. She rode them over the years when she would possess Birdie. She was no expert, and honestly, had no idea how to secure such a thing. Astrid opted to rely on some human help. Leaving her room, she went down to the desk clerk and asked if they knew how she could acquire a bike.
◆◆◆
Dad and Grandpa washed up in the kitchen sink after threats of bodily harm from Charlie if they messed up her cleaning efforts, then took a seat at the kitchen table. Charlie carried over a gold Tupperware pitcher filled with sweet tea and placed it down as Eleanor filled the bowls with the steamy soup. Each carrying a tray over with them, Charlie and Eleanor took their seats at the table. After dishing out the food, they began enjoying their lunch together. Dad and Grandpa filled in the group on the parking situation. Charlie noted how, for the first time since her mom’s death, the house was showing tiny hints of being a home again.
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As Astrid wheeled her find down the street after handing the previous owner ten dollars, she thought back to how she had once ridden one of Birdie’s bikes. She had watched Birdie perform the task almost daily, and one day she used her limited energy to take control of Birdie and ride. The wind in her hair, the freedom gave her one of the first signs that she wanted more.
◆◆◆
After wrapping up lunch, Grandma announced she would clean the kitchen, then she would need help making some dishes for the next day. She asked Charlie to run up to the guest room and grab her recipe book from the dresser. Returning with the home-crafted recipe book in her hands, Charlie saw her dad and grandpa busy in the sunroom spreading the tablecloths. She set the book on the counter and grabbed her glass of tea from the table before joining her grandma at the sink. Grandma washed; Charlie dried.
They turned their focus on the recipe book as they heard the whir of The Beast in the family room. Her grandma explained they would be making deviled eggs, potato salad, and mini deviled ham and tuna sandwiches. Flipping to the first recipe, Grandma guided Charlie to pull down the items needed for the eggs. As Charlie did so, her grandmother filled a large pot with water, tossed in a handful of salt, and added two dozen eggs to the cold water. While the eggs came to a boil, they began chopping onions. The inevitable tears formed for both of them. Charlie took the moment to share her mom’s trick to cure the crying. She handed her grandma a slice of bread and instructed her to bite down on it. Grandma was overjoyed at this discovery and was quick to share her excitement as the men made their way towards them.
“What in blazing hell are you up to, Eleanor?” Grandpa scoffed. Snatching the bread from her mouth, she explained the science, and, in disbelief, Grandpa attempted to disprove the theory.
Charlie and her dad laughed at him as he tried several variations to debunk the helpful hit. Finally convinced it was legit and not some crazy woman thing, he and Dad stated they were going to head out for a beer run, leaving the girls to their cooking.
An hour or so—and forty-eight deviled eggs, one large bowl of potato salad, and dozens of small sandwiches, later—the men trudged in with a few boxes of beer under their arms and bags of ice in their hands. They proceeded through the sunroom door. Charlie watched through the kitchen window as they systematically snatched coolers from the shed, hosed them out, and filled them with ice and beer. Closing the last of the coolers, the pair walked back in and explained it was cold enough outside that the ice would be fine.
In one final group push, they arranged Dixie plates and plasticware, along with napkins and cups, out on one of the party tables. Grandma then performed one final walkthrough and gave her motherly approval. Deciding they all needed some downtime before thinking about dinner, Dad went to his office to finish up his eulogy, Grandma set herself up in his recliner in the family room with her cross stitch, and Charlie challenged her grandpa to a game of backgammon. With everyone in their spots, the next hour or so ticked by uneventfully.
With the sun setting outside, Charlie took the loss to her grandpa with dignity and went to wake her grandma, who had fallen asleep, cross stitch still clasped in her hands. With a gentle whisper, Charlie asked her grandma what temp to set the oven at for the lasagna that was on the menu for that night. Grandma shimmied to a more upright position with a few grunts and groans and let Charlie know three hundred and seventy-five degrees would be fine. After setting the oven to the temp requested, Charlie excused herself to go work on some reading for a bit while dinner heated up. Saying a quick hello to her dad as she turned up the stairs, Charlie made her way to her room.
Halfway through her biochemistry chapter, Charlie could smell the lasagna getting stronger in the house. Knowing from experience that when smells reach her room, the food would soon be done, she highlighted her last few lines and set her text and pen down on her desk. She stood to stretch, then went to her closet to pick out her outfit for the funeral in the morning. She knew it was traditional to wear black, but also knew her mom would have completely backed up a choice to be more vibrant. Finally deciding to have the best of both worlds, she picked a classic black sheath dress with a wide patent leather belt for the funeral. She selected a brighter, floral print dress with a fitted top and flowing skirt separated by a thick, hot pink, elastic clip belt for the party to honor her mom. Hanging her choices side by side on the rod, she went to her bathroom, splashed water on her face, dried off, reset her banana clip, and went to join the others downstairs.
Charlie entered the kitchen as Grandma lifted the foil off the lasagna for a final browning. “Do I hear the salad cavalry?” She asked.
Charlie replied, “You betcha.”
Grandma pushed the lasagna back in the oven, lowered the temp a smidge, set the timer, and turned to a pile of salad ingredients on the island. Charlie washed her hands, grabbed a small knife, and stood opposite her grandma. She decided to tackle the tomatoes while the older woman shredded the lettuce.
